The Sweet Hereafter
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: How do you deal with falling in love with a man who wears your beloved's face? :: Angelina, post-war.


Written for Hogwarts' Yule Ball Event: Buying your Dress Robes - Write about a stressful situation, Sex Ed Assignment: Task two: Write about someone getting pregnant, the Sticker Challenge: Bertie Botts Beans - Write about a surprise, the Insane House Challenge: Dialogue - "It's not the same without you.", the 365 Prompts Challenge: Event - Pregnancy, Dragon Appreciation Month, the Writing Club - Showtime: Requiem - (emotion) Grief, Count Your Buttons: (object) radio, Shannon's Showcase, Liza's Love - The Sweet Hereafter, Character Appreciation - Dialogue: "Obviously!".

 _How do you deal with falling in love with a man who wears your beloved's face?_

 _Word count:_ 4352

* * *

 **The Sweet Hereafter**

The first thing Angelina does when they stumble away from the battlefield — from Hogwarts, and Merlin, those two words should never have had to mix — is pour herself a drink.

Her hands shake so much half of it ends up on her hands, but she welcomes the sharp cold of the liquid as it hits her skin.

She knocks back one glass and then a second before George, who had insisted on walking her home — even though it's safe to go go back back, even though it's _over_ — has a chance to say anything.

She's already pouring herself a third glass when his hands touch hers, gently prying them open so he get take the glass away.

She swallows dryly, tasting alcohol on her lips and fire at the back of her throat where the Firewhiskey had burned going down. She yearns for more — she can feel the dizziness spreading through her veins, through her mind, but it's not enough yet.

She's not _numb_ yet. She can still _feel_.

With shaking hands, she grabs for the bottle, nearly tripping when George moves it just out of her reach.

Before, it'd have been a game — one they've played a million times.

Before, he'd have been laughing at her, and Fred would have been too, his laughter echoing in her ears, his breath warm against her neck.

 _Fred_. Oh, _Fred_.

Blindly, she makes another grab for the bottle, for the numbness that could help her. That could save her.

But this time, when George keeps it out of her reach, anger ignites in her stomach and she charges at him.

The bottle clatters to the floor, the glass breaking in a million shards as shimmering liquid splatters across the floor, but Angelina doesn't care.

She just wants to hurt him — to hurt him like she hurts inside. And yes, she knows he's hurting too — but George may look dead on the outside, but his heart's still beating. His blood is still rushing through his veins.

He's still alive, and Fred is not. Right now, it feels like the cruelest kind of fate.

George wraps his arms around her, holding her flailing arms down. He doesn't even hold like Fred — doesn't smell or feel like him either — and she tries to kick him.

" _Let me go!_ " she screams, teeth snapping in his direction. If she could bite him, she would.

But nothing works. He just keeps holding her as she falls apart.

He's silent, though. Not a word leaves his mouth until her energy is spent, until her screams turn into desperate sobs.

Until her knees collapse underneath her and she drags him down with her to the wet, sticky floor, shards of glass digging into her skin even through her clothes.

She wants to run her hands through that disaster and gather the pieces, wants to bloody her hands as she picks up the broken shards of her escape.

She doesn't. She just stays still, sobbing against George's chest, fingers cramping around dusty robes that smell like smoke and death.

"I'm sorry," he finally whispers, "but Fred would kill me if I let you hurt yourself now."

Angelina swallows back the bitter laugh that bubbles at the back of her throat, and doesn't answer.

For the rest of the night, she doesn't say or do anything. She just listens to the cruelest sound in the world: the heartbeat of a man she's not in love with.

("I wish it had been you," her heart screams. "I wish he had lived and that you'd taken his place — that if one of you had to die, it wasn't the one I loved."

She doesn't say it — she's not angry enough, not drunk enough for those terrible words to slip out.

But he hears them anyway. George's eyes, so alike Fred's and yet so different, answer her for him.

"I wish that too.)

.

She sleeps in Fred's room — it used to be just his and then _theirs_ , but now it's just _hers_ and she sees him everywhere.

There's that ugly stain on the ceiling that he used to make fun of, and the right side of the bed is still his.

Sometimes, she wakes up with her arms wrapped around his pillow — it no longer smells like him, but in the middle of the night, when she's even less than half awake, there's always a split second where she forgets.

Where she believes that she's holding onto Fred instead.

The truth always breaks her heart.

Sometimes, too, she lays awake all night, fingers spread out over the covers like she used to. If she clenches her eyes very tight, she can almost picture his hand sliding against hers, their fingers intertwining like they were made to fit.

Sometimes, she talks to him.

Stupid stuff, like "I miss you".

Like "It's not the same without you".

Like " _I love you"._

.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

As Angelina stares at the Potion vial sitting at the edge of her bathroom sink, that thought keeps repeating in her head. This wasn't supposed to happen. They'd been so careful — _she_ had been so careful. Neither of them had been ready for — and now, Fred was gone and she was alone, and Merlin, but she didn't know what to do.

("And this," the Mrs. Pomphrey of her memories repeated, "is the Potion you take if you want to know if you're pregnant."

Oh, how she'd stared at them then — sternly and almost expectantly, like she just knew at least one of them would end up pregnant while at Hogwarts, as though it was unavoidable.

"This won't be me," Angelina had scoffed in her own mind, and she had been right — it hadn't been.

"I always have some on hand if you need to know," the old nurse had continued, her features softening a little. "And if it turns pink, we can decide on what to do next."

Angelina, as well as all the other girls who had been dragged there for this awkward sex ed class, nodded along.

 _Pink is pregnancy_ , she cast into her memory, _and blue is for nothing happened._ )

She takes the small vial in her hand. The pink almost glowed, casting shimmering hues on her skin.

No one had told her it would be this pretty.

She could get rid of it, she thinks, her hand drifting to her still flat stomach. Get an abortion. No one will ever know if she doesn't tell them.

She could do it. It would be easy. So very easy. She was too young for this, too _alone_ for this. Maybe if Fred had lived, they could have…

 _They could have what?_ her treacherous mind whispers; and Angelina doesn't know, but she wishes she had had the chance to find out.

She could get rid of it, she tells herself again, and yet she makes no move to do so. Somehow, the very thought makes her sick — this might as well be the last piece of Fred she has, and even if she has no idea how she'll manage, she wants to try.

Merlin, she wants to try.

She needs this, she realizes. She needs this bit of good news to counterbalance all the bad she's had to deal with over the last couple of years. The war was cruel for all it was short — stealing Fred away from her was, perhaps, the least of its crimes — but now that it's over, she's been struggling with the aftermath.

Slowly, she stands up. She takes the potion vial in her hand again, fingers tracing the cool glass absently. She washes it away in the sink slowly, mind racing as she watches the pink liquid swirl away with the water.

She had time, she knows. She won't show for a while yet, but she'll need to go to St Mungo's at some point to see a Healer.

She already wishes she could ask her mother to go with her, but the war stole that from her too.

The potion's all gone now, and yet Angelina still can't let go of the empty vial. She keeps in a closed fist that she rests against the cold porcelain of the sink, her eyes glaring straight into the mirror, where she studies her own face.

She looks terrible — her eyes are red and her mouth is pursed thin, but no matter how hard she tries, no smile seems to stay on her lips for very long.

And yet, there is a light about her that wasn't there before. Hope, and determination. A purpose. It shines through her skin — nothing obvious, but it's still there, heartbreaking in its very presence.

Fred, she knows, would have made a wonderful father.

.

When Fred and George had opened their shop, the small apartment on top had been a nice surprise. Something they hadn't expected.

It was small, but if growing up at the Burrow had taught them one thing, it was that they didn't need much space to live.

But then Angelina had moved in with Fred, and suddenly the place had really seemed too small for three.

Angelina still remembers that wild weekend where the twins competed to see who could cast the best Expanding charms on their walls — by the end, the size of the place had at least doubled. More, in some places, like that kitchen cupboard Angelina still has to use _Accio_ on if she wants to get anything.

She had had to put a stop to things before they either blew up the place or ended up making the place as big as Hogwarts — or both, knowing them. George had joked that now their kids would have the room to run free, and Fred had choked on the Butterbeer he had just opened while Angelina stood there frozen, heart in her throat and laughing along awkwardly.

That night, as they laid in bed, their bodies intertwined, Fred had whispered in her ear, "Hey, we don't have to have kids if you don't want to."

Angelina had laughed tiredly as she turned to face him, his features only dimly lit in the darkness. He had looked like a god then. Like a creature out of a dream. "What would your mother say?" she'd asked, only half-joking.

"Mum'll be fine," Fred had snorted. "I've got other siblings — Bill's even married now. I'm sure she'll get plenty of grandchildren to spoil even without us."

 _Us_. Just remembering the way Fred had used to say that word makes her shiver.

She had kissed him then, heady with relief.

Now, without him, her fingernails dig into the palms of her hands, a pale distraction from the pain in her chest.

It's crazy how little the apartment changed since Fred died. It's still a mess — Angelina had given up on organizing it after a month (three weeks longer than both twins had thought she'd last) and had instead learned to live with it. There are half-completed experiments strung out on the coffee table, and their kitchen counter has been singed so many times it's a wonder they haven't burnt the place down yet.

The biggest difference is how empty the place feels. How big.

The size hasn't changed since the twins made the place large enough for three. The Expansion charms are still there, still working their magic.

They could take them off, Angelina knows. They hardly need them anymore — and yet, George hasn't tried it any more than she has.

She wonders if he feels, like her, that they're some of the last remnants of Fred they have — that this is something to be cherished despite its awkwardness. If he, too, can't bear to part with the memories of those happier days, when three sets of laughter filled the rooms with warmth.

But maybe — just maybe — one day, there'll be three sets of laughter again.

Maybe George will get his wish, and see his nephew race around the place like he'd once joked about.

Wouldn't that just be something?

.

For a time, she entertains the thought of hiding her pregnancy from even George.

But aside from the practical issues — they do live together now — there's also the fact that some days, Angelina feels like she's the only thing keeping him in this world.

He's getting better — just like she is — at slowly letting the world back in, but she still sees it in his eyes: a fierce, burning desire to protect her, because that's what Fred would have wanted.

She knows this, because it's how she feels when she looks at him and sees a shell of the brother Fred loved, the one he used to call his other half.

" _And you, Angelina, are my_ other _other half_ ," he'd used to add with a wink right after that, his tone so cheerful Angelina could only laugh and shake her head at him ruefully.

No. She can't keep this from him. Everyone else, for whatever time she needs? Yes.

But George? George, who truly understands the depth of her grief and shares a purpose with her?

No, she can't.

But the days pass and she still hasn't told him. She's tried — countless times — but the words stick in her throat every time she opens her mouth, and she always ends up talking about something else entirely.

" _George, I'm pregnant."_ Somehow, she's never thought those words would be so hard to get out, and yet, no matter how hard she practices them, she still can't say them to anyone but her own reflection.

In the end, however, she doesn't have to say anything. George figures it out on his own.

(It's so very easy to forget how smart the twins always were, especially since they've always loved playing the fools.)

To be fair, she does give him several clues, the biggest of which is how sick she quickly starts to get every morning. That's hard to hide from your roommate.

"That's the fifth time this week you've been sick over breakfast," George tells her as he hands her an anti-nausea potion. Downing it has her immediately feeling better, though Angelina doesn't dare risk food right now.

Instead, she pours herself a glass of water and sits on the edge of the bathtub tiredly.

"Yeah, it is," she says, and raises her head to stare straight into George's eyes.

It still hurts — even having had weeks to get used to this, she still has a fraction of an instant where she thinks she's looking into Fred's eyes before reality crashes back on her. It's better, though. Now, it only twinges a little, no longer the sharp pain it was in those first few days.

She's honestly not sure if she dreads the day even that bit of pain will be gone, or if she yearns for it.

"Are you alright?" George's worry is painted all over his face, and Angelina's heart for a whole other reason now.

"I'm fine," she answers, smiling a little. Her hands drift to her stomach, cradling it gently, and George's eyes follow the gesture, before widening suddenly.

" _Oh_ ," he gasps. "Are you…?"

Voiceless, Angelina nods.

George sits down beside her, hands trembling. His eyes are filled with something like wonder as he stares at her, and Angelina's eyes start to water.

"Is it…?" George can't seem to find the words. His face is distorted with an odd mixture of grief and hope, and again, Angelina nods.

"Yeah, it is."

It's almost funny how she can't say Fred's name out loud either.

George looks stunned at first, but slowly, a smile unfurls on his lips. It changes his whole face — it makes him look alive again. Angelina likes to think she can see his soul like this, shining through his every pore.

She drinks that sight in, heart tripping in her chest.

It looks an awful lot like hope.

.

George is unfailingly kind after that. Not that he wasn't before already, but he turns more mindful once he knows. Whenever they're in the same room, Angelina can feel his eyes on her, and she doesn't have to look at him to know what she'd read there if she did: the same desperate kind of hope she sees in the mirror in the morning.

The hope that maybe they'll be alright after all — that maybe she'll manage to be a good mother to that little kid growing up inside of her (and Merlin, but isn't that thought the scariest of them all). That maybe they're learning to move on, to move _forward_.

Angelina still talks to Fred's ghost every night, but now she also presses a hand to her growing stomach, a litany of gratitude falling from her lips for this chance at a purpose outside of her work.

She'll have to give that up soon too — at least for a while. She's still not sure how she feels about that. Quidditch has been her dream job for so long, she's not sure how she'll manage being grounded, being unable to take off and leave her problems on the ground.

But it'll be worth it. She can already tell that this little being inside her — her daughter or her son, she doesn't know yet, nor does she want to — will be worth any hardship she could ever endure.

.

The first time she hears George laugh again, _after_ , it hits her like a punch in the gut. It had been for something stupid too, a joke that Angelina already can't remember, even if the humor of it still lingers in the air.

"Does it bother you, that I…" George's eyes drift down to the ground, words dying on his lips.

Angeline wonders how that sentence was meant to end. What was he going to say — that he'd moved on? That he was moving on?

Or maybe simply that he'd been happy just now, fleeting though that moment had been.

"You don't have a face made for sadness," she confesses quietly. She almost hopes he didn't hear her — somehow, the words feel too personal, too intimate to voice. They betray something she doesn't want to face. Not yet, and possibly not ever.

George's eyes seem to burn a hole in her as he replies, just as quietly, "Neither do you."

His right hand finds hers and he squeezes it, just once, before leaving it there, its presence a warm weight on her skin. It grounds her like so few things do, and she allows herself a moment to sip in that comfort silently.

The little bell the twins had installed over the entrance door rings, signaling a new customer, and the moment breaks.

It's not until George draws back his hand, leaving her feeling cold and empty despite this having been so small a touch, that she realizes what's happening.

 _Oh_ , she thinks. _I'm falling in love with him._

She almost laughs at the thought — here she is, pregnant with his nephew, a constant reminder of the one they both lost, and she's falling for him.

And Fred hasn't even been dead for six months.

She doesn't like what that says about her.

.

The thing is, once she's noticed it's happening, she can't _un_ notice it. It permeates her every thought, her every moment. She analyzes everything — every look he sends her way, every look _she_ sends his way. Every word they say.

But she can't stop it. Maybe she could have, once.

Not now, though. Not anymore. Not since she's seen George's face lit up when she told him she felt the baby kick and that he could try to feel it too.

Not when every day reminds of how different George is from Fred, for all that they look alike. Look _ed_ alike.

She knows what people will think though, if they ever learn about this. She knows what this will look like.

They can't hide forever.

 _She_ can't hide forever — glamour spells are only so useful, after all, and truthfully, she's just tired of them. Tired of pretending — to her friends, who have been so great to her, and to her family, or what remains of it.

Even if she's always been estranged from her father, he deserves to know this. They all do.

She waits until the evening, when George stumbles back home once he's closed the shop, to tell him that.

"I want to tell your mother about me."

George startles, but his face is surprisingly — or perhaps not so surprisingly — judgment free. "Are you sure?"

She's not, but she also can't wait any longer. "I want to do this," she replies. "She deserves to know." She sighs, biting her lower lip worriedly. "Would you… Would you come with me?"

George's gaze on her feels warm and soft. "Of course."

Relief blooms in her stomach, and Angelina smiles at him. "Thank you."

"Hey, anything for you," he replies, voice soft as a feather, and Angelina's heart trips up in her chest.

She doesn't know what to say to that, so she doesn't say anything. She just nods instead, and hopes that conveys everything she can't say out loud.

From the way George's eyes simultaneously soften and warm, she thinks it might.

.

Molly Weasley might very well be the kindest, gentlest woman Angelina has ever met. Not that she doubts the steel hidden underneath — anyone who does after they saw what she did to Bellatrix Lestrange is clearly mad — but it's so very easy not to think of it.

Or at least, it was.

It's more obvious now. Sometimes, Angelina forgets George and her weren't the only one who lost Fred — his whole family did, and they were just a part of it.

She doesn't think she understood Molly's pain clearly before, but now she has a clearer view of it. She hasn't even held her child yet, hasn't even thought of naming him or her, and yet she knows a part of her would die if anything ever happened to him or her.

It makes Molly's effervescent greeting of them look all the more impressive, even if the signs of grief are there to see if one looks close enough.

Still, Angelina is glad to see her, and she deeply regrets not taking the time to before. How had she ever doubted her welcome here, when Molly had always opened her arms and home to her children's friends?

Angeline sinks into Molly's embrace, chuckling at George's grumbling of favoritism.

"Oh, hush you, I just saw you yesterday," Molly replies, though she quickly draws George into his own hug, tighter and more lingering than Angelina's had been. "I haven't seen Angelina in _months_."

"Sorry, Molly," Angeline says apologetically. "I've been…"

"No need to justify yourself, dear," Molly replies with a kind smile, resting a warm hand on her arm. "We all deal with grief differently."

The words looked painful to say and a shadow passed over Molly's face, causing Angelina's chest to ache.

"I'm still sorry," she replies mulishly. "I shouldn't have stayed away for so long."

She crosses her arms, but the gesture draws attention to her stomach. Angelina can see the moment when Molly gets it: she goes pale, her mouth falling open in a silent gasp as her eyes water.

" _Oh_ ," she sees, before turning an insistent look upon her son. "George…?"

George startles and blushes furiously. "It's not mine," he bites out, his tone chopped.

Angelina confirms it with a quick nod. "It's Fred's," she manages to choke out, and the words taste like bile in her mouth. She feels empty. Worn out.

Immediately, Molly draws her into another hug, her hands tracing soft circles on her back. "Oh, my poor child," she croons, and Angelina can't tell if she's talking about Fred or her. Not that she cares about that right now.

They'll have to talk more. Angelina has so many questions — about pregnancy, about being a mother… Questions she can't exactly ask her own mother anymore.

But that will come later.

For now, Angelina lets herself be held. She shuts her eyes tight and tries to ignore the ache in her chest that makes her eyes want to cry.

.

"What are you gonna call them?" George asks her at one point. It's late but neither of them can sleep, so instead she's watching him fiddle with the old radio she knows they used to broadcast their resistance messages last year.

For an instant, a memory from the past superimposes on the present, and she sees Fred instead of him, asking her the same question.

 _("If you had kids, what would you call them?" he asked her, one night as they laid beneath the sheets._

" _What would you?" Angelina countered, still half-breathless._

 _Fred pretended to think about it for a moment, his face drawn in mock concentration. He looked… There were no words for the way he looked, and Angelina had to kiss him then, and since she could, she did._

" _Fred, if it's a boy," he finally said, eyes shimmering mischievously._

 _Angelina raised an eyebrow at him. "Wouldn't that be confusing?"_

" _Obviously!" Fred replied with a wink. "But that's the beauty of it — it'd be the greatest prank I could ever pull."_

 _Angelina snorted. "But what if it's a girl?"_

" _Well, then you can choose," he replied, and promptly swallowed up her answer in another kiss, and another, and another…)_

"Fred, if it's a boy," she replies, returning to the present with half-smile on her face.

George swallows thickly. "Sounds great," he says, voice raw.

Angelina nods. "Yeah. And if it's a girl… Maybe Hope."

" _Hope_ ," George repeats, lips slowly stretching around the word. "I like the sound of that."

She smiles back, heart swelling in her chest. "Me too."

 _Hope_.

Angelina can almost taste it on the air.


End file.
